A lot of these photos show suburbs that while they may be denser than North American ones, still don't look all that appealing. The houses are behind huge fences or shrubs, and even the tower block suburbs look like they are cut off from the surroundings. I don't think people take strolls in these suburbs or walk to a cafe, etc. It looks all very segregated by land use, just like American suburbs, but just denser.

I think the whole world has lost its ability to built truely nice interconnected neighbourhoods

A side from better transit connections, these suburbs look just as isolating as American or Canadian suburbs. And in some ways maybe even more withe lack of front porches, the fences, etc.

that kind of lifestyle of walking to cafes and shops is not real for most people cause they don't want to live that way

Eh... No. The main reason most people don't live in places where that can be done is that after the 1920s "urban" planning took a different direction. Laws, taxes, fees, ... , have been anti-urban in much of the west for a long time. Modernist suburban planning is still the norm in Stockholm at least, and it has nothing to do with how people want to live. The only study I know of about how people actually want to live (in Stockholm) showed about 45% want a house of their own, 45% urban living and about 5% the modernist highrise 'burbs that have been (and still are being) built.

People DO want to live where the lifestyle of walking to cafes and shops is possible, but there's a huge shortage of such places. The market has not provided, it has been skewed by planning ideology and laws aiming for sprawlburbia.

Eh... No. The main reason most people don't live in places where that can be done is that after the 1920s "urban" planning took a different direction. Laws, taxes, fees, ... , have been anti-urban in much of the west for a long time. Modernist suburban planning is still the norm in Stockholm at least, and it has nothing to do with how people want to live. The only study I know of about how people actually want to live (in Stockholm) showed about 45% want a house of their own, 45% urban living and about 5% the modernist highrise 'burbs that have been (and still are being) built.

That would mean 50% still prefermodernist suburbs.
Anyway I'm rather sceptical to this "urban living" ideas, there are many areas with traditional XIX century urbanism in Europe with half empty streets and very few shops/cafes ifany because they are too far from the center and not popular enough. New Urbanism seem to ignore changes that happen in human lifestyle in the last 100 years, they seem to think that if we build like they did in XIX century Paris or XVII century Italy people would start to lead similar lifestyle which is quite naive if you ask me and I don't know many examples where it actually worked.

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People DO want to live where the lifestyle of walking to cafes and shops is possible, but there's a huge shortage of such places. The market has not provided, it has been skewed by planning ideology and laws aiming for sprawlburbia.

You can have those in modernist districts too, even if prefab technology didn't allow for too much commercial space you can still build some free-standing structures for this purpose.

If I may point out, something like 90% of Stockholm is Radiant City sprawl. Stockholm was touted by planners worldwide, in its day, as the future of the city (see, for example, Edmund Bacon's The Design of Cities).

In the U.S.--particularly the western U.S.--the built form is so consistently sprawl that it shouldn't surprise anyone that New Urbanism is strongest here. In the eastern U.S. and much of Europe, by contrast, the urban form is much more finely-grained, with traditional town centers incorporated into often sprawling (and occasionally towering) suburbs. In the wealthier parts of the urban region--where people have a choice--a "return to the city" is in full swing. Philadelphia's Main Line and the North Penn area, for instance, are chock-full of busy traditional town centers; within the far poorer Balkan Burbs (the collection of Delaware County boroughs hugging West Philadelphia), the urban centers are underutilized. I.e. those with choice choose the cities, and those dreaming of choice dream of the suburbs.

That would mean 50% still prefermodernist suburbs.
Anyway I'm rather sceptical to this "urban living" ideas, there are many areas with traditional XIX century urbanism in Europe with half empty streets and very few shops/cafes ifany because they are too far from the center and not popular enough. New Urbanism seem to ignore changes that happen in human lifestyle in the last 100 years, they seem to think that if we build like they did in XIX century Paris or XVII century Italy people would start to lead similar lifestyle which is quite naive if you ask me and I don't know many examples where it actually worked.

50% is my point! 50%! not 85% and growing, which is the ratio in Stockholm. Also, the vast majority who want suburbia want the single family house, not the concrete tower blocks.
As for 19thCentury urbanism... yeah, it has its flaws, which comes from it being from the 19th century and not adapted to changes in technology and lifestyles. For instance, inner city Stockohlm at one point had 100 movie screens (mostly in 1-screen theaters). Since then not only do most people have tvs, other pasttimes also take up our time, cost of going to the movies has gone up (gah!) and... inner city Stockholm has about 1/3rd less people living in it! and that's with the moderinst additions on the edges that count towards the administrative units.
I'm no proponent of pure 19thC urbanism, I'm in favour of urbanism (and no, suburban ain't a sub-set of urban IMO) which is a wider category. I prefer taller buildings than the pre-elevator norms, I prefer more office spaces included in residential areas (and residentials in office areas). Building density has to go up to make our cities come alive today since we live on so many more square meters per person at home and at work.

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Originally Posted by opius

You can have those in modernist districts too, even if prefab technology didn't allow for too much commercial space you can still build some free-standing structures for this purpose.

lol. All I picture is the dozens upon dozens of now-failed mini-malls, suburban zquares and cultural centers strewn all over Sweden (and Europe), standing there all covered in tags and 20th incarnation of the local grocery in 40 years, surrounded by concrete towers of one shape or another strewn in patterns (that look nice from 10km up) on parking surfaces in a forest.

It was funny. I was just at a planning symposium, and they had a planner from Paris come to talk.

She got up, turned her power point on and flashed a picture of really really tight single family homes. It kinda looked like inner city Toronto, Chicago, or any number of other North American cities.
She then went on about how so much of Paris is sprawl like in this picture

At the break, some of the planners were talking about how funny Europe thinks single family homes with walkable retail strips and high density, is sprawl, just because it is single family homes.

that kind of lifestyle of walking to cafes and shops is not real for most people cause they don't want to live that way

Funny you say that. If that was true, than neighbourhoods that offer such things would not be the most popular and in demand, and most expensive places in our cities to live.

I know this is not Europe, but I remember when Toronto was redoing their official city plan. The planners asked residents in the suburban areas what they wanted their suburban neighbourhoods to be like. The main thing people wanted, as for their suburban neighbourhoods to be like the inner city, where they could walk to shops, cafes, etc.